UKFI, the government body set up to manage the taxpayer's interest in the semi-nationalised banks, counts among its management team individuals from the so-called "investment" banks that created this crisis.

This week another banker (who has seen nearly 60% wiped off the value of his company in the past year) has been given a peerage and invited to become our unelected trade minister.

Last week in a radio interview, London mayor Boris Johnson talked of the opportunity schools in the capital have if the brilliant brains now losing their jobs in the City retrain as teachers. What will these brilliant brains teach? Greed? Selfishness? Tax avoidance?

A whole generation in this country has lived under the deplorable values of the City's "masters of the universe". By all means, they should find new jobs. Indeed, their skills should be much in demand in betting shops. But in government? Or in front of children? Someone call social services.

• Business minister Baroness Vadera is not alone in spotting the "green shoots of recovery". Mortgage brokers are cock-a-hoop over HSBC's new sub-3% home loan. One went so far as to describe it as "the catalyst we need to kickstart the market".

It is a good deal - as long as you meet its strict requirements. But a recovery in house prices will remain the stuff of mortgage brokers' dreams for some time.

In 1989 I noticed an estate agency in south London proclaiming that day's 1% cut in interest rates from 14.875% (yes, it was a very different world). "Time to jump back into the market," said the agents. I wanted to believe, as I was deep in negative equity. But in truth it was another six years before local prices recovered the levels they'd seen in 1989. Today I feel that if house prices never regain the absurd levels of mid-2007, then we'll all be better off.

But HSBC's sub-3% deal (if followed by other banks) is good news for hard-up households coming off pricey fixed-rate deals.

The most financially stretched home buyers were always the ones advised to take out fixed deals. After all, you need the comfort of static monthly costs. But it has been to their intense discomfort and envy that borrowers on trackers have enjoyed spectacular cuts in rates, with some now on pay rates of below 1%. Meanwhile remortgage deals for people coming off fixes have remained resolutely stuck around 5%.

Getting help to these hard-pressed households will be key in the coming year. If HSBC can offer deals below 3%, so can the semi-nationalised banks.

And so can other bodies. In the 1950s, local authorities would offer home purchase loans as low as 2%. Those days they also built social housing, alleviating not just the post-war housing crisis but also price pressure in the private market. Today's financial headlines are about rates at their lowest since 1694, but maybe it's the 1950s we should be looking at for guidance.

• Congratulations to Paul Braithwaite of the Equitable Members Action Group (Emag). His dogged determination to obtain compensation for policyholders has finally borne fruit. The early battles for a payout from Equitable's management achieved nothing. The non-exec directors, auditors and actuaries at Equitable have also escaped with their wallets untouched. But Emag has found deeper pockets - yours and mine. As taxpayers, we will now pay for Equitable's failures, much as we are paying for the failures of the "experts" who ran banks. Maybe Mr Braithwaite could now turn his attention to the many pension and endowment holders with other companies who have suffered considerably more than those at Equitable.